Malaysia has been generally considered to be a moderate Muslim country. There are however recent instances towards radicalism and predispositions towards liberalism remain ambivalent. There are however think tanks in Malaysia that are sufficiently open in their thinking to assist with the liberal education agenda. These contradictory developments are indications that it is high time to pursue an agenda of genuine liberal education for the holistic development of not just the intellect but the very soul of Malaysian society.

Sanen Marshall argues that - general Malaysian conservatism apart - the education agenda loosely known as the "Islamisation of Knowledge" is actually noticeable in Malaysian school history textbooks and even in some of the ideas being promoted at the university level. The lack of an attempt at an alternative history in school text books is perhaps something that people should be concerned about in Malaysia. Sanen Marshall also considers the idea of "Islamic science" as an enlightened but sometimes misguided approach to Islamising knowledge.

Three PhD students ask themselves one important question: Who will take care of our parents and grandparents when they can no longer care for themselves? In Germany, Sweden and Italy there are very different answers to this question! Kristin Noack, Marlene Seiffarth and Greta-Marleen Storath explain why and tell the audience what Poland, the Ukraine and Romania have to do with it.

The event is part of the series SCIENCE GOES PUBLIC! in which scientists present their research topics in pubs and talk to citizens.

Kenneth Benoit is Professor of Quantitative Social Research Methods and head of the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics and Politics Science and part-time professor at Trinity College Dublin. His contribution to text analysis in political science should not be underestimated, where his development of computer-assisted estimation of policy positions from political texts remains a cornerstone in the literature. He maintains and created the QUANTEDA package for managing and analysing text data, and therefore is well placed to offer insights into the "big picture" of QTA, and what to expect in the future.

The historian Kiran Klaus Patel from the University of Maastricht presents his current book "The New Deal. A Global History". In preparation, the participants read parts of the book to discuss them with Kiran Klaus Patel in the workshop. The passages to be discussed and the guiding questions will be communicated in advance.

Registration: The number of places in this workshop are restricted. Please register by sending a short email to Prof. Dr. Delia González de Reufels at dgr@uni-bremen.de.

Western countries have long struggled to achieve a successful social and economic integration of immigrants. This challenge has further increased against the backdrop of recent immigration trends. In this context, labor market integration is a pivotal stepping-stone that grants opportunities for immigrants and their families allowing them to take part in the social and economic life of their host country. Flavia's presentation will provide an overview over which policies are most promising in enabling immigrants’ labor market access, based on her research at, inter alia, the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP) in Lausanne.

Social policy aims at protecting social rights and creating social security. In addition to the market and familial support networks, social policy is a key producer of welfare. However, welfare state research – at least in the context of advanced democracies – usually understands social policy as a matter for the nation state and explains its development almost exclusively in the context of domestic conditions and processes. Therefore, there is often a lack of systematic consideration of external influences on national social policies. Examples of external influences include the role of international organizations (e.g. ILO, WHO), or interdependencies between states and societies, such as cross-border information exchange (e.g. policy learning), migration, trade relations or violent conflicts.

In accordance with the central aim of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC), the main theme of the conference revolves around explaining the global dynamics of social policy from the last quarter of the 19th century to the present day. Participants seek to address how the interplay between domestic factors and inter-/transnational interdependencies has shaped the development of social policy.

We distinguish between two types of international interdependencies that may trigger the development of social policy across countries: (1) Horizontal interdependencies refer to cross-national interdependencies such as (de-)colonization, war, trade relations, capital movements, migration flows and transnational communication. (2) Vertical interdependencies denote relations between states and international organisations.

Since national policy-makers need to address these international influences, the thematic focus of the conference is on the interplay of national socio-economic and political frameworks with international interdependencies in order to explain the development of social policy in global and historical perspective.

Dr. Dieter Wolf (SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy, University of Bremen)

"King Cotton" is a gripping narrative of the history of the global marketing and industrialisation of cotton and an alternative explanation for the phenomenon of global capitalism. But the book offers possibilities to think beyond the narrow focus of the topic.

Some of these possibilities with regard to the "other side" of capitalism, the (often missing or inadequate) social policy and the welfare state will be presented and discussed in this event.

What were the consequences of the Arab Spring and the subsequent regime changes for Tunisia's and Egypt's social policy? What are the similarities and differences between the two countries? InIIS Managing Director Dr. Roy Karadag will address these questions in a lecture at the InIIS BIGSSS Colloquium.